Posted
by
timothyon Sunday December 30, 2012 @04:30PM
from the that-will-have-no-problems dept.

Location services can be useful and fun, but, depending on how paranoid ("cautious") you are, you might already dislike the idea of a social-network dashboard keeping track of where you are at a given moment. After all, bad guys can use computers, too.
Now, Foursquare may up your level of caution just a bit: CNET reports that "Beginning January 28, 2013, users' 'full names' will be displayed across the check-in service and venue owners will have increased access to users' check-in data, the company announced in an e-mail sent to users late last night." Users, though, "will still have control of the name displayed by altering their 'full name' in their settings," and can opt out of the increased flow of data to business owners. For users' sake, I hope Foursquare doesn't go in for the "real names" fetish to the extent that both Google and Facebook have.

Google Plus, Facebook, Foursquare - a lot of services are really pushing the boundaries at the moment. I suspect the social media backlash is going to begin pretty damn soon.

On a similar, on topic note: Did anyone who does sign in to youtube recently get 'tricked' by a box popping up, offering them the option to change their first / last name on the service? I got it and thought, "fantastic! I can finally login with a name other than my gmail mail alias" and attempted setting up a different name. BAM - it made me a Google+ profile which I didn't want.Upon removing the profile, my videos are now tied to my "Google+ youtube account" - so anything I uploaded, any favourites, any comments are not available unless I re-create the account.

Heavy handed indeed and from the musings on the web, I'd say I'm not the only one who got stung by this.